


The Cold Winter's Aged the Soft of Your Face

by burningveins



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post Season 7, Undercover!Jon, even though y'all really don't want her to, sansa has real life human emotions, to a degree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 06:16:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12053058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burningveins/pseuds/burningveins
Summary: The Northern air felt sharp in Jon’s lungs as he inhaled deeply, his heart was beating hard inside his chest and he could feel the buzz of his nerves humming up and down his arms. Daenerys’ procession pressed onwards towards the gates of Winterfell, trudging through the deep snow that covered the road.| post season 7 finale





	The Cold Winter's Aged the Soft of Your Face

**Author's Note:**

> **Characters & Pairings:** Jon Snow, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, Bran Stark, Daenerys Targaryen; Jon/Sansa
> 
>  **Warnings:** Not anti Dany but maybe not the all time most friendly so if that's not your jam just keep it in mind. Uses undercover!Jon theory.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** The title is from the song Autumn Tree by Milo Greene (I highly recommend; it's an incredible Jonsa song), and the few lines of dialogue from the show are credited within the story.
> 
>  **Notes:** As much as I adore the angst of 'Sansa ices out Jon' fics the idea of Sansa isolating herself from Jon who is really the only person that she has who she full-heartedly trusts and loves was so unbearably sad to me. I just feel like often those fics don't truly explore the effect of that on Sansa since, even though she's guarded, she's not an unfeeling automaton. I know that it will cause some serious tension next season but I'm really hoping that they start humanizing Sansa a bit more and recognizing her Ice Queen facade for what it is. Thank you so much to Kris to betaing, you're a lifesaver truly! This is my first Jonsa fic so hopefully it's not terribly occ.

The Northern air felt sharp in Jon’s lungs as he inhaled deeply, his heart was beating hard inside his chest and he could feel the buzz of his nerves humming up and down his arms. Daenerys’ procession pressed onwards towards the gates of Winterfell, trudging through the deep snow that covered the road.

He was completely consumed from the first moment he read that letter. Bran was home. Bran, still a young boy in his mind’s eye, with his love of climbing and his energy that vibrated in his bones, who was brave and smart and kind. Arya was home. Arya with her wild movements and feral intent, who was fierce in her mind and her heart, her hate and her love. 

The emotions that flooded through him when he had learned of their return were near blinding and he had barely managed to conceal them. Behind his eyes was a constant flood of images. He saw Bran running along the rooftops. He saw Arya, quick as a cat, chasing him around the courtyard with a wooden sword she’d found in the training room. But there were certain things that he saw more than others, red hair the color of the setting sun and the warmth and fluidity of the fire that burned in his chambers each night, eyes blue as the seawater that lapped against the sides of boat but that held all the ferocity of gathering storm clouds and crashing thunder.

He saw these things now and they weighed his feet down like lead. He knew what he had done. No matter the consequences of his actions he was not blind, and he would not look away from harsh truths as his dragon queen might. He knew that he had gambled away their freedom, bet everything that they had, everything their family had died for. He was a man caught between two swords, forced to impale himself with either one or the other. As much as it broke his heart, and as much as his family’s faces and voices plagued him, pleading with him not to sell their kingdom for an alliance as fragile as bird bones, he was haunted by more than familiar faces. He could still feel the piercing cold of the Night King’s eyes, an inhuman and unfeeling ice that ran deeper than the howling winds beyond of the wall or the snow that crusted itself into eyes and hair and settled in stomachs. It was a raw cold, the purest he’d ever felt and he knew the gaze was that of death itself. Though death may be inevitable, he would not allow anyone else to feel that cold.

Nonetheless he felt sharp jolts of panic run up his spine with every heavy footfall. He knew that she stood there behind the doors, and he knew that her eyes must hold an entirely new ice for him to fear. It was a chill he had seen many shiver beneath, but while their blue hot fire may have left him burnt, he had never felt cold beneath them. He longed for that heat many nights as he stared at the ceiling, but he knew that he may never feel it again, and the thought formed his stomach into a tight coil.

They had finally reached the gates. He stood straight, with his face expressionless and his heart in his throat. The gates swung inwards and he was instantly struck by a blur of arms and legs.

“Jon!”

He held Arya close to his chest and let out a strangled laugh which barely managed to slip through his anxiety. He could not deny the pure unadulterated relief that came with finally seeing his little sister again. A sister that he had once loved more than most anyone. A sister who he’d thought was dead, and whose ghost his haunted him, hanging heavy in his heart for years.

“Gods you’re big,” he said, smiling. She was still small but she had a woman’s air to her now; she was strong and her features had shifted and hardened. When she looked up at him though, her grin lopsided and not a little wolf-like, she was the girl he’d known all those years ago.

His eyes scanned quickly over her shoulder, looking for Bran and avoiding the person he knew would be standing tall and proper in the middle of the line Arya had broken. He spotted him sitting in a wheeled chair staring at him vacantly. 

“Jon,” Bran said, giving him a quick nod.

“It’s good to see you again Bran,” Jon said, nodding back, not knowing how to respond to the boy’s strange demeanor. Bran had aged as well. His features were sharp and he was much taller. However there was very little of the boy that he remembered in the man sitting in front of him. The vacant, emotionless look in his eyes made Jon both frightened and unspeakably sad.

He forced himself to tear his gaze away and finally confront what he had been ignoring. Sansa’s gaze met his from where she stood in the formation. He gathered all the courage within him and walked forward. He could feel the eyes of every person in the yard on him, including his  _ queen _ , and he knew that he could not yet tell Sansa all the things that he yearned to.  _ I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry _ .

After what felt like an eternity, every second of which he’d counted since the second he’d turned away from her terribly sad smile so many months ago. He slowly raised his eyes to meet hers and what he saw was so much worse than what he’d been fearing. He had been more than sure that he would be met with Northern eyes, filled with ice and snow and wind, and while first glance may decieve he could see the truth in them. Buried way back, behind the armored walls and ice, was a deep sadness. She was showing it to him, she wasn’t hiding it away, and somehow that was both so much better and so, so much worse.

“Lady Sansa,” he said stiffly, though his heart was beating so hard he was sure that it bruise his ribs. Her eyebrows raised at his tone and formality. She matched it as she looked him dead in the eyes and addressed him. 

“Your Grace.”

He could see the weight of the words in her eyes, and feel it in the way Daenerys bristled behind him. He inhaled sharply as she confirmed what he had always known deep inside. Sansa would not bend the knee; it did not matter what promises he made, she was not his to promise.

Suddenly Daenerys’ hand was around his bicep and she was speaking in his ear. “Jon, may I speak with you?” He nearly winced at her informal addressal, so different from his exchange only a few seconds ago. Daenerys pulled him away from Sansa. He looked back over his shoulder as they moved towards one of Winterfell’s many stone passages, but she was already moving towards Tyrion and didn’t watch him leave.

He met Daenerys’ eyes and they were fire where Sansa was ice. “I thought that you had written her,” she said with barely contained rage. 

“I did,” Jon responded. 

“Then why does she continue to address you as a king?” Her tone was vaguely accusing and he took a moment to compose himself before responding. He still hadn’t quite accustomed himself to her rages. 

“I have promised you my kingdom,” he said calmly, “but Northerners are wild. I have warned you that they will be distrustful of any Southern ruler, but I have also promised you that they will come to realize that you deserve their trust.” Each word tasted like poison in his mouth. 

It was not that he believed her to be a bad person. He did not hate her and he knew her heart to be good beneath it all. She was not a good leader however. She was too selfish, too proud, too impulsive. It was not his place to judge her, but it was his place to judge if she would be good for his people, and the acid on his tongue was his knowledge that she could never give the North what it deserved. He didn’t know if he could either, but he knew it was his duty to make certain someone did, and it was not yet a duty he could fulfill. 

Her gaze softened, however, at his words, her rage dissipating. “You are right,” she spoke, “I apologize. I suppose it is just difficult for me to understand having such a loyalty to a land.” She tried to catch his gaze but he looked away. 

“I understand,” he said in a voice he hoped was believable. 

“Will you talk to her? You may be able to make her understand.” What Sansa was meant to understand he did not know, but he agreed nonetheless. “Thank you,” she said kindly, taking his hand in hers and smiling softly. Jon mustered a returning smile and gave her a brief nod. “She’s your sister. She’ll listen to you.” She gave him one more smile before she left to rejoin her court.

_ His sister _ . The word still left wrong somehow. As children Sansa had mostly ignored him. While he’d never truly disliked her, she was a symbol of his pariah status, a constant reminder that he didn’t really belong here. But when he’d seen her standing in Castle Black that day suddenly everything had changed. He’d thought that he’d finally found some sort of family within the brotherhood, broken and war spurred as it may be, but then they betrayed him and suddenly he was an outcast again. Just when he’d thought he was completely alone he’d seen her, so tall and lovely and just as lonely as he was. All of a sudden the person who had made him feel as if he didn’t belong was the only person that he belonged to.

Even then though, it was never like it had been with Arya. Their relationship had been easy, playful, teasing. He had loved her but in a steady and simple way. Arya was his sister. Sansa was different. Things were never easy with her. He discovered that just as their relationship had changed, Sansa had changed as well. He remembered her a soft girl, lovely for certain and endlessly charming, but she did not have the same wolf that he saw in his other siblings. 

This Sansa was anything but soft. She was willful and stubborn and cunning and fierce. She did not show her strength in the same manner as Arya but still it was undeniable. She was a force of nature. She reminded him of the northern winds during a winter storm, relentless and unyielding. Her intensity was calculated and controlled unlike Daenerys who was at the will of her rages. Sansa could make his blood burn just as she could make it sing and he found that with her he could  _ feel _ , truly feel, without thinking first. After a while he began to realize that maybe he didn’t need a family, maybe this alone would be enough.

The thought that now even that may be lost to him made his stomach tighten and sit like a rock in his abdomen. He watched her through the window, conversing with her new guests. After several minutes however he stopped. Watching her was like looking into the sun, awesome and impressive, but painful. Tearing his gaze away he swallowed hard and continued down the hallways towards his chambers, suddenly realizing how tired he was. 

* * *

When he awoke the sun had set and while he found it strange he had not been called to supper he decided that it was a question for another time. He had put this off for long enough. He could not cower behind his decisions any longer.  _ The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword _ . That’s what his father always said. If he was going to be the one to kill this thing between them, let him look her eyes as he does, she deserves that much.

He rose from his bed and began down the corridor to her room. Before knocking he stood before her door and collected his courage.  _ Come on Snow, be a man, it’s only Sansa. There are worse rooms to walk into.  _ Sansa opened the door and her face was unreadable, no hint of the sadness he saw earlier.

“You weren’t at supper,” she said, the first real thing she’d said to him since he’d left. 

“Can I come in?” 

She moved out of the doorway and across her chamber but didn’t respond, instead continuing on as if he had not spoken. “You owed us that at least. Your people elect you king and you sign it away without consulting anyone,” _Without consulting_ _me_ he heard. _You’re right. You’re right. You’re right._ “And then you don’t even have the courage to look them in the eyes?”

“I fell asleep,” he said pathetically. 

Sansa let a breath of air through her nose. “You don’t think it’s odd that no one came to wake you? She didn’t want them to see their king because it may remind them that she’s not their real queen.”

“She is their real queen now,” he said. Something inside of Sansa deflated. Suddenly she looked unbearably tired and young. 

“Jon.” 

She said only his name, but the smallness of her voice made him feel as if every bone in his body was breaking. If he had any reserves about telling her what was in his heart they were out the window. He could not lie to her. Not the only person that he didn’t guard himself around. Not when she still offered him the same, even now, when he could tell the effort of it was crushing her.

He fought to find the words and once they came they were barely a whisper. “I had no other choice.” The simplicity of the statement shocked him, but it was the truth. He had felt all this time that it was so complicated, but in reality all that had happened could be summed up in those five words. 

“You should have asked me,” she said.

“I know,” he responded, “but I think I know what you’d have said.” He tried to smile but she did not return it. “This is war, Sansa. If we do not make sacrifices then we will lose, and if we lose then it does not matter who rules the North or the South because we will all be dead.”

She looked hard into his eyes. “What is the worth of life without freedom?” she said. “Do you know what means to be a prisoner, Jon? To have every aspect of your life controlled by someone else, someone who hates you. I have lived by the will of others for far too long. The Lannisters, Littlefinger, Ramsay. I will not be held captive, not here, not in my own home, not again.”

Jon’s stomach sunk. The idea of anyone controlling Sansa, his Sansa, so willful and powerful, was so unfathomable to him that he often forgot even the strongest people can be overpowered. 

“You will be no one’s prisoner.” His voice was firm and resolute. “I promise it. I will not allow it to happen.”

“We will have our freedom one way or another,” he said. “I promise you Sansa, I have not forgotten.”

He stepped towards her. He brought his hand to the softness of her cheek and relief pulsed through him when she leaned into his palm. “The war is long,” he spoke softly, “but it is nearly over.”

Her eyes met his and this time he saw the sadness there but something else alongside it. Something that he couldn’t place, but that made his heart beat quickly in his chest and his nerves tingle up and down his body. 

“You know, I was afraid you would hate me for this.” He surprised himself with the honesty of the words. 

“I very nearly did,” she said back, “I tried, but I could not. It hurt too badly.” She tilted her forehead forwards to rest against his. 

“I trust you,” she whispered. “Someone once told me that life is safer without trust, and she was right. I did live that way for a long time, and it was safer, but the loneliness hurt more than any torture. I don’t know that a life like that is truly worth living at all.”


End file.
